4

A BRAVE NEW WORLD

Seven members of the family Tiedemann arrived in New York Harbor thirty-eight years ahead of the Statue of Liberty. The Old World was behind them, and the New World, with all its possibilities, lay ahead.

For the next few decades, Wiebke would watch and guide her children as they made their way. There was land to buy and homes to build. There were vows to share and children to bear. Most of it would take place in Ohio, and the heart of the story would always center on Cleveland.

Wiebke sold half of her Brooklyn Township property to her son Claus in 1848. She deeded the remaining 54.33 acres to him on October 3, 1853. An adjoining 69 acres in Rockport Township were added in 1866. It was in Brooklyn that much of the family would remain for the next few years. In addition to Claus and his mother, the farm was also home to Wiebke’s youngest child, Lowiese.

Living two farms up the road was Rebecca Eliese, the second-youngest daughter, who worked as a servant for the James W. Day family. Catharina, who’d gone back to using her maiden name, remained in Cleveland and worked as a servant in the home of a draper named Salmon A. Powers.

Ludwig, the second oldest of the Tiedemann children, set out for northwest Ohio, and by 1850, he was living in the town of Defiance, where he worked for an ashery. Ludwig remained at this occupation throughout most of his life. Also, he left the Lutheran faith for the Methodist Church, becoming an elder of the community and later a minister at St. Paul’s Church in Defiance.

As many other immigrants did after arriving in this country, Ludwig Anglicized his name to Lewis and shortened his surname to Tiedeman. Today, there’s a street in Defiance that’s named for him. Lewis shares this distinction with his eldest brother. Tiedeman Road in Brooklyn, Ohio, was named for Claus, though it’s actually misspelled. Claus never shortened his surname. The mistaken spelling appearing on the road can be traced to when his name was accidentally shortened on land maps, and the error was carried over in the naming of the road.

Shortly after arriving in the United States, Johannes Tiedemann shortened his name to Hannes and took an apprenticeship on the farm of a man named Simeon Enos in Parma, Ohio. The main operation of this farm was a cooperage, or barrel manufacturing shop. Hannes already had experience in this field as a joiner, working in his father’s blacksmith shop back in Süderau.

It should be noted that Hannes Tiedemann’s early apprenticeship has been mentioned in publications, though on every occasion, even in his obituary, the location named is North Royalton. The fact is that Hannes Tiedemann never worked in Royalton. The farm in Parma where the Enos cooperage existed wasn’t sold until August 1855. At that time, the Enos family relocated to Royalton.

Hannes remained with the cooperage in Parma until 1854, when he decided to seek greater opportunity in the city. After returning to Cleveland, he found employment as a traveling salesman and clerk with the wholesale grocery firm of Babcock, Hurd and Company. A year later, Hannes Tiedemann became a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Shortly after beginning his job with Babcock and Hurd, Hannes befriended another German immigrant named John Christian Weideman, who was employed as a salesman for a rival grocery firm called Edwards and Iddings. John and Hannes remained friends for the rest of their lives.

John Christian Weideman, circa 1897. From Cleveland und sein Deutschthum, 1898.

By 1862, the American Civil War was fully engaged, and no doubt, this brought back memories of earlier civil unrest that had taken place in Hannes’s beloved homeland and precipitated his family’s move to the United States. This was a time for him to reflect on his life and make plans for the future. He’d now grown into a handsome young man, standing five feet, eight inches tall, with gray eyes and sandy blond hair. Half of his siblings were married, starting families of their own, and Hannes felt the need to join them.

Catharina found herself a new husband in a man named Gaston G. Allen on October 31, 1852. Gaston, the eldest son of William Allen Sr. and Dorcas S. Burdick, was born on March 30, 1822, in LeRay, New York, and arrived in Cleveland with his family around 1832. Like Catharina, Gaston had also been previously married. On January 2, 1848, Gaston married Eveline Adell Johnson of Newburg, Ohio, but they had only been wed for a year and a half when twenty-one-year-old Eveline died on June 25, 1849.

Gaston would prove to be an excellent husband, as well as a very motivated individual. Shortly after he arrived in Cleveland, he entered into an apprenticeship to become a journeyman ship’s carpenter, a trade he maintained for many years. His most notable achievement was his membership in the fraternal order of Free and Accepted Masons. He was mostly affiliated with Bigelow Lodge No. 243, the first Masonic lodge on the west side of Cleveland, where he was elected the first Worshipful Master in 1854. He also made the first set of jewels for Bigelow Lodge as well as the aprons and rug before the altar.

The Allens’ Cleveland residence throughout much of that era was a home on the corner of Franklin and Hicks Streets. In 1857, they briefly stayed at a boardinghouse on Pearl Street, now West 25th Street, where they were joined by Wiebke Tiedemann, who lived with them on and off for many years to come. In 1859, they relocated with Wiebke to a home on Root Street, now West 47th Street.

Claus Tiedemann remained in Brooklyn, where he continued to farm his eighty-three acres. On October 26, 1856, he married Emielie Baumgart, a daughter of German immigrants Frederick August and Sophia Rossow Baumgart. Claus and Emielie Tiedemann had eight children: Elizabeth, Paul, Anna, twins Fritz and Wilhelmina, Claus Jr., an unnamed stillborn son and Emilie. Many of their children would marry and remain in the area of the family farm.

Even Hannes’s younger sister, Rebecca Eliese, who now went by Eliza, was married by this point. She’d wed a man from Dover, Ohio, now the cities of Bay Village and Westlake, named Lyman Perry Foote on October 24, 1857. Foote was the son of Thomas and Diadama Perry Foote, settlers from Lee, Massachusetts. Like Gaston G. Allen, Lyman had also been married once before. His first wife, Ruth Berry Smith, died on July 19, 1855, at the age of thirty-one.

Claus and Emielie Baumgart Tiedemann, circa 1907. Courtesy of Tim and Cori Walkden.

In the winter of 1862, Hannes Tiedemann boarded a ship and traveled back to his hometown of Süderau in search of a wife. His youngest sister, Lowiese, accompanied him.

Hannes’s future bride was Louise Höck, the daughter of Juergen and Wilhelmine Christine Schultze Höck. She was born in Süderau on May 10, 1837. Louise’s father was a prestigious member of the community and more educated than most. Juergen Höck was the village schoolmaster and the organist at St. Dionysius Areopagita Lutheran Church, the Tiedemanns’ home parish. Louise was a childhood friend of the Tiedemanns and likely often played with Eliza and Lowiese. It’s not known how long the courtship existed between her and Hannes, as it is possible they’d been exchanging letters for years. This is very likely, as Hannes Tiedemann received his first U.S. passport on July 22 of the previous year, a necessary preparation to travel abroad to marry. Wedding bells rang out for Hannes and Louise on March 19, 1862.

Four days later, Hannes Tiedemann and his new bride boarded a 301foot, three-masted iron vessel named the Bavaria and set out for home. They disembarked in New York City on April 10, 1862, just two days before Hannes’s thirtieth birthday, and returned to Cleveland. That autumn, Hannes and Louise were expecting their first child.

Louise Höck Tiedemann.

Hannes Tiedemann. Courtesy of Dora L. Wiebenson.

After receiving the good news, Hannes moved himself and his young bride into a home he rented from his brother-in-law Lyman Perry Foote at 112 Hanover Street. This home, a wooden frame house, was situated just four addresses northeast of Franklin Circle on what is now the east side of West 28th Street.

At that time, new opportunities were presenting themselves in Hannes’s life. In 1861, John C. Weideman opened a wholesale liquor and grocery firm with a man named Jacob D. Hildebrand. Two years later, he sold his interests in the firm to Hildebrand and immediately formed a new partnership with Hannes Tiedemann under the name Weideman and Tiedemann, Wholesale Liquor and Grocers.

Weideman and Tiedemann was opened in a small shop at 70 Merwin Street in the Cuyahoga River flats, just a few doors east of the current location of the Flat Iron Cafe. In this enterprise, Hannes Tiedemann built his fortune.

In early June 1863, Louise Tiedemann gave birth to their first child, a daughter they named Wilhelmine. Tragically, the joy of her birth was short-lived. Two months later, on August 10, 1863, Wilhelmine died from consumption. Hannes was a man of limited means and had no plan for burial expenses. His brother-in-law Gaston G. Allen owned a family plot at Monroe Street Cemetery in Cleveland and was more than willing to allow young Wilhelmine to be buried there. She was interred in Section B, Lot 19, Southwest 1/4 Tier.

Weideman and Tiedemann on Merwin Street, as depicted on a cigar box label from the Weideman Company. Collection of William G. Krejci.

August Johannes Tiedemann, circa 1874. Courtesy of Dora L. Wiebenson.

That following winter, Louise was again expecting and gave birth on September 28, 1864, to their second child, a healthy blue-eyed boy named August Johannes. Louise was again with child by the spring of 1865. A growing family meant that the Tiedemanns needed a larger house.

When the family began to look for a new home, they didn’t need to go very far. Just a few blocks west, they found a wonderful frame house with a carriage house behind it and a wide green yard in the back that was more than large enough to allow their children plenty of room to play. It was an oddly shaped lot situated along Franklin Street and was still close enough for Hannes to travel to work in a timely manner.

The well-built home was occupied by Alonzo Wolverton, a twenty-four-year-old Canadian man. He and his three brothers had come to Cleveland to further their educations but found themselves involved in the American Civil War. Disease had claimed the lives of two of his brothers, and now the house held nothing more than empty memories of happier days long gone. Alonzo was ready to return to Ontario.

Alonzo Wolverton sold the property at 283 Franklin Street to Hannes Tiedemann on October 19, 1865, for $3,000. To avoid the sales taxes, the property was deeded in Louise’s name. Hannes and Louise’s third child, a daughter, was born in November of that year, just after the family settled into their new home. They named the blonde-haired baby girl Emma.

By then, the war had ended, and like all wars, some businesses prospered and fortunes were made, while some lost everything and were financially ruined. Of greater import was the tremendous effect the war had on the personal lives of individuals and families, especially for those in uniform and actively involved in the fighting. Many, including the Tiedemanns, were touched by the drama of the war.

Emma H. Tiedemann, circa 1874. Courtesy of Dora L. Wiebenson.

When the first shots of the Civil War were fired on Fort Sumter on Hannes Tiedemann’s twenty-ninth birthday, there was a rush of men enlisting with the Union army. Hannes’s brother Lewis joined up with the Ohio 100^th Infantry on June 6, 1862. Afterward, he was transferred to the 8^th Tennessee Cavalry, where he was promoted to second lieutenant. Lewis Tiedeman received his discharge on February 6, 1864, and returned to Ohio to take on the charge of administering a Sunday school at the Broadway Church in Toledo.

Eventually, Lewis returned to Defiance, where on January 7, 1867, he married Helena Ann Harley, a twenty-two-year-old daughter of German immigrants Christian and Regina Stelzer Harley. Lewis and Helena had six children: Perry, Anna, twin daughters Tilla and Lillian, Charles and a daughter named Cora. Sadly, both Charles and Anna wouldn’t live beyond infancy. Lewis’s family remained in Defiance until the late 1890s, when they returned to Toledo.

Gaston G. Allen also enlisted with the Union army. He served for one hundred days with the Ohio 150^th Infantry, whose charge it was to garrison fortifications around the nation’s capital. The only fighting they participated in was the battle before Washington, D.C., against General Jubal Anderson Early’s corps on July 12, 1864. Just a few months before enlisting with the Union army, Gaston purchased a house on Taylor Street, now West 45th Street. He and Catharina lived there with Wiebke for only four months. Perhaps out of fear that the fighting would reach Cleveland, Gaston sent Catharina to live in Davenport, Iowa, with family friends. Accompanying her on this trip were her youngest sister, Lowiese, and her mother. Gaston joined them in late 1865.

In early October 1866, Hannes and Louise Tiedemann decided to correct their oddly shaped property on Franklin Street once and for all. They entered into an agreement with the men who owned the property just to the east, exchanging thirty feet from the back of the Tiedemanns’ property along Vine Court with thirty feet of frontage on Franklin Street. This meant that they’d lose a considerable amount of their backyard but would gain quite a bit up front. The property was now a perfect rectangle measuring 63 feet by 167 feet.

Now as the nation started to return to a state of normality, the business of Weideman and Tiedemann grew faster than it could accommodate. By 1867, they had moved into a larger building up the block at 30 Merwin Street. A new partner was also added to the firm, Oliver Granger Kent, a noted horse breeder, philanthropist and longtime friend of future president James A. Garfield. The new name for the business was Weideman, Tiedemann and Kent.

Gaston and Catharina Allen left Davenport in 1868 and returned to Ohio, but rather than live in Cleveland, they chose to reside in the small lakeside community of Vermilion, where Catharina’s sister Eliza was living with her husband. Lyman was involved in the shipbuilding industry in that town, and Gaston, a skilled ship’s carpenter, found opportunity to pursue his trade. The Allens remained in Vermilion until 1873.

Catharina and Gaston G. Allen. Courtesy of Dora L. Wiebenson.

Lowiese Tiedemann opted to stay with the Allens in Vermilion, where she met her future husband, Henry Thompson, who worked with Gaston and Lyman. Lowiese, the youngest and the last of Wiebke Tiedemann’s children to marry, became Henry Thompson’s bride on November 21, 1871. They had two children, a son named John and a daughter named Katie Belle Thompson. Katie married a man named George Smith, who died before their fifth anniversary. They had no children, and Katie never remarried. Her brother, John, remained a bachelor.

In 1868, Hannes took his wife and children on a trip back to Germany. Six years earlier, he’d gone there to find a wife. This time, they returned so they could visit with friends and relatives but especially so that Louise could see her parents again and give them the chance to meet their grandchildren.

When they returned to the States on September 22, 1868, they were accompanied by a young woman named Christine Kerina. Christine was from the Tiedemanns’ home village and sought to immigrate to America. She lived with the Tiedemanns for a few years and worked as a servant in their home. This was the beginning of a benevolent pattern of behavior for the Tiedemann household. Frequently, when German immigrants arrived in Cleveland, Hannes provided them with a place to stay until they were able to find employment and a residence of their own. Hannes had a wellearned reputation of being a generous man and benefactor in the German American community.

Also, in 1868, when Gaston and Catharina Allen moved to Vermilion and Lowiese chose to stay with them, Wiebke returned to Cleveland. It may be that the home in Vermilion was too small for the four of them, but it seems more likely that Wiebke wanted to be closer to her sons Claus and Hannes and their families. She moved in at 283 Franklin Street with Hannes’s family.

In December 1869, there was yet another addition to the Tiedemann household. Ernst S. Tiedemann became the fourth child born to Hannes and Louise, but once again, the joyous excitement was cut short. Ernst died almost seven months later, on July 10, 1870, from brain fever, which today we know as meningitis. He was laid to rest beside his sister at Monroe Street Cemetery.

It is important to note that childbirth back then, unlike what we are used to, was fraught with danger. Most children were born at home. When labor began, the doctor or midwife was sent for and hopefully arrived in time to assist. Even then, there was a higher mortality rate for both the mother and child than what we’re accustomed to today. In some cases, there would be later complications connected with the birthing process. Along with these complications, there were infant and childhood diseases that could easily prove fatal. Parents in the 1800s knew that life was a fragile gift. Today, we think that children are supposed to bury their parents, but not long ago, many parents had the sad task of burying their children. Our cemeteries are a testament to this. What happened to Hannes and Louise wasn’t unusual.

The Tiedemanns were sustained as they watched their children, August and Emma, continue to grow. Added joy was given to the family on May 29, 1871, with the arrival of their fifth child, a daughter whom Hannes and Louise named Dora Louise.

Louise Höck Tiedemann with unknown child. Courtesy of Dora L. Wiebenson.

April 1870 saw the arrival of a new neighbor for Hannes and Louise Tiedemann. John C. Weideman purchased the property immediately to the west of the Tiedemanns. Just around the time that Dora was born, the Weidemans built a house on that property and resided there for the next few years. In 1877, John Weideman sold that house to his only surviving son, Henry, and moved into a grand home at 194 Franklin Street.

Oddly, just as Weideman was becoming the Tiedemanns’ neighbor, Hannes decided to withdraw from his partnership in Weideman, Tiedemann and Kent, and by late May 1871, Hannes had removed himself from the firm altogether. By this time, he’d amassed a sizable fortune in the grocery trade and figured it was time to move on. He sold his interests in the grocery firm to Oliver Granger Kent and began a career as a private capitalist, purchasing properties around the greater Cleveland area and focusing on real estate investments. These investments paid off quite well in years to come.

On July 19, 1872, Hannes Tiedemann’s brother Claus purchased a fifty-four-acre farm—just up the road from his farm in Brooklyn Township—from a man named Patrick McPhillips for $6,300. The property already contained a two-story Italianate home. It was in that house that Claus raised his family. The road it sat on would one day bear his name. Over the next few years, he and Emielie sold off their original farm to the north in what is now Linndale.

Dora Louise Tiedemann, circa 1874. Courtesy of Dora L. Wiebenson.

In the late spring of 1873, Louise Tiedemann gave birth to her sixth and final child, Albert, who died a couple months later on July 8, 1873. He’d be the last of the Tiedemann children buried at Monroe Street Cemetery.

The death of young Albert was just one of three major events that affected Hannes Tiedemann that year. The second was the return of Gaston and Catharina Allen to Cleveland. They’d purchased a home at 40 Root Street, now 1827 West 47th Street, just a few doors down from their previous residence. Wiebke Tiedemann left Hannes’s house and once again lived with the Allens. At this time, Gaston had taken a job as a carpenter with the shipbuilding firm of Radcliffe & Langell. Eliza and Lyman Perry Foote had previously moved back to Cleveland, where Lyman entered the pile driving industry and purchased a home at 341 Franklin Street, just a few blocks west of Hannes Tiedemann’s house. It was there that Lyman and Eliza raised their two daughters: Cora Elise and Helen Perry Foote. Their home still stands at the address 4706 Franklin Boulevard.

The third major event to occur in Hannes’s life in 1873 was his subsequent involvement with a neighbor on Harbor Street named Bernard McGroder, a blacksmith, who’d also dabbled in tinkering with new ideas. Early that year, he and Hannes came up with an idea for an improved marine salvaging device that would receive a patent on September 9 (Pat. No. 142,712). The McGroder-Tiedemann Wrecking Apparatus revolutionized the marine salvage industry as a new method for raising sunken vessels from deep water.

On October 25, 1875, Hannes Tiedemann followed his brother Claus’s example and made a real estate purchase that he’d utilize for himself. The purchase was from Henry Beach and comprised 4.34 acres of land that stretched between Lake Erie and Lake Avenue in East Rockport, now Lakewood, Ohio. Hannes was planning something big, something that wouldn’t stop there but would carry over as an idea for his property on Franklin. Although he didn’t know it at the time, it was an idea that would guarantee his name to be carried on long after he’d be gone. The idea was simple enough.

Hannes Tiedemann would build a house.